Precisely. As Szasz said, it is an ideology.
The Scientistic Church of Souless Theraputism isn't mine.

> To believe in it when it> comes to lungs but not when it comes to brains is problematic.

Take a course in logic or semantics, or read a dictionary, maybe.

A bacterium exists, a virus exists. Does one catch schizophrenia from a
sneeze?

> Fortunately or unfortunately, as it may be, we are a long way from> establishing the physiology of sets of behaviors

Oh, yeah; like forever and away; despite the missionary fervour of
belief.

--- nonetheless, it has> been done (think of the transition of holy fools to epileptics)

Definately a course in logic!!!

1. Discovering a neural malfunction is not the equivalent of
finding a virus.
2. The fit did not make a person "mentally ill", it just meant that
he fell and thrashed. There was no ascription of an incapacity to think
or feel in an acceptable way.

Epilepsy is a condition; it had one name, it was given another name.
Nothing was changed but the name. The discovery of "short-circuits" in
the neural pathways explained the cause, without altering the condition.
Szasz points out very lucidly -try actually reading his books,
instead of someone's exerpts, if you've gone so far as to read anything-
that the designations assigned to people change everything!

> risk of romanticizing schizophrenia, as Szasz did and others (most> notably Deleuze/Guattari).

What does that mean? Assigning human qualities to human beings?

It makes for much more neat and orderly pigeonholes to regard people
as mechanisms, but pleasantly arranged and filled pigeonhioles are not
ordained from the beginning of time as Final Truth, whatever The
Therapeutic Church teaches.

> Liberty for the individual is the foundation of all liberty. Read> : Szasz again, to see the point of that.> > Again, are you willing to support the libertarian agenda

No, no! That course on logic is SO needed!

It is the Therapeutic Church/Totalitarian State which has an
agenda!!
The libertarian has no agenda; that's what's so frustrating to you!

> all the way or> just in this instance?

Your rights stop at my body, land, hearing, and so forth. Short of
intrusion and assault, you have the right to do and to be anything you
please.
One idiot tried to paint a picture of a prison without the forced
infliction of psychotropic drugs, tears all over. The problems leading
to collapse are caused by the prison, all the drugs do is make the
warehousing of slaves less bothersome for the slavekeeprers. Where men
feel the need to be drugged out of awareness of their misery, they ask
for the drugs. The usage in contexts of control is obscene beyond words
and cannot be justified by anything. Amend the system, don't drug the
slaves within it.
My preference would be a Coventry, actually. Short of that, guarded
perimeter farms, with no intrusion on the person of the prisoner, merely
a restriction of place, and only for actual violence having been done.
(Within that, schools and counseling for those willing to have them.)
The ones such as Manson and Dahmer, I would sentence to the firing squad,
since there comes a point where rehabilitation is not possible and the
community has to be protected from evil. I point out that a bullet does
not rape the man's soul, it just sends it to its destination.

I doubt that you and I could ever agree on anything. I oppose all
that you are and do.